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Introduction

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Some 20 years after the end of World War I, lingering disputes erupted in an even larger and bloodier conflict—World War II. The war began in Europe in 1939, but by its end in 1945 it had involved nearly every part of the world. The opposing sides were the Axis powers—consisting mainly of Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies—primarily France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China. Estimates of the number of casualties vary widely, but by any measure the war’s human cost was enormous—35 million to 60 million deaths, with millions more wounded or left homeless. (For a chronology of events for World War II, seeWorld War II Chronology.)

The political consequences of World War II, like those of World War I, altered the course of 20th-century world history. The war resulted in the Soviet Union’s dominance of the countries of eastern Europe and eventually enabled a Communist movement to take power in China. It also marked a decisive shift of power away from the countries of western Europe and toward the United States and the Soviet Union. The tense rivalry between those two countries and their allies, known as the Cold War, would influence events throughout the world for the next 50 years.

Buildup to War

The start of World War II climaxed a series of warlike acts between 1931 and 1939 by Germany, Italy, and Japan. The acts of these nations included taking territories that did not belong to them. The League of Nations had proven ineffective in halting the aggression of Japan in China, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and the German takeover of Austria. (See alsoWorld War I, “The Peace and Its Results.”)

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The United States had protested the actions of these countries. Britain and France, however, agreed to let the German dictator Adolf Hitler and the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini take the territories they wanted. The British and French hoped this policy of appeasement would prevent another war. (See alsofascism.)

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On September 30, 1938, Britain and France agreed in Munich to let Germany have a part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland. Hitler said this would be his last territorial demand in Europe. In March 1939 Hitler broke this pact, taking over the rest of the country. This ended the British and French policy of appeasement.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain and Premier Édouard Daladier of France promised aid to Poland in case of a Nazi attack. Hitler soon demanded the return of Danzig (Polish Gdańsk) to Germany and a strip of territory linking East Prussia with the rest of Germany. Poland refused.

In May 1939 Germany and Italy signed a pact pledging to support each other in war. Hitler and other German leaders believed Germany lost World War I because it had to fight on two fronts. To prevent this in a new war Hitler and the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin signed a ten-year nonaggression pact on August 23, 1939. On September 1 Germany annexed Danzig and invaded Poland, and the war began.

The War Year by Year

The War During 1939

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Two days after the invasion of Poland, Britain and France demanded that Germany withdraw its troops. When Germany refused Britain and France declared war on Germany.

The Poles were easily defeated by Germany’s blitzkrieg, or “lightning war.” The first day the German Luftwaffe (air force) destroyed Poland’s airfields and bases. Within a week it had crippled the lines of communication. At the same time German Panzer (armored and mechanized) divisions encircled the Polish armies.

The Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland on September 17. Poland was soon forced to surrender. Germany and the Soviet Union divided Poland between them.

Some Polish government officials, soldiers, pilots, and naval units managed to escape the swift Nazi and Soviet advances. They fled to Britain, where they continued the fight against Germany with the Allies.

The “phony war” in the West; war at sea

On the Western Front there was little fighting. The French were confident that a series of fortifications known as the Maginot Line in northeast France could not be broken through. The Germans had similar fortifications on their Siegfried Line, paralleling the Maginot Line in western Germany. Britain thought its Navy could successfully blockade Germany and thus starve it out of the war. Because there was so little fighting, this period on the Western battlefields was referred to as the sitzkrieg, or “phony war.”

The war at sea, however, was active. Germany launched a counterblockade against the British. German submarines (U-boats), mines, and bombs sank many Allied merchant and passenger ships.

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In December 1939 a dramatic sea battle took place off the coast of South America. British cruisers damaged the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, which had been raiding Allied commerce in the South Atlantic. It was forced to take refuge in the harbor of Montevideo, Uruguay. The captain of the Graf Spee sank the ship rather than risk its capture. There would be no great naval battles in the Atlantic.

The most sensational German naval achievement during this period was a raid on Scapa Flow. On October 14, 1939, a German U-boat made its way into this British naval base and torpedoed the battleship Royal Oak. By 1941 the Allies would lose more than 3.5 million tons of shipping to German submarine attacks.

Soviet-Finnish war

The Soviet Union invaded Finland on November 30. Finland had refused to give the Soviets military bases. The large Soviet army was expected to defeat tiny Finland quickly. The Finns, however, held off the Soviets for several months.

Finland’s Mannerheim Line of fortifications was finally broken through early in 1940. On March 12 Finland signed a peace treaty that gave the Soviet Union important Finnish territory.

The War During 1940

Early in April Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. Denmark accepted the “protection” that Germany offered the two countries. Norway, however, declared war.

British troops landed in Norway, but they were unable to stop the German advance. In May the British forces were evacuated. On June 9 Norway fell. King Haakon VII escaped and set up a government in exile in London.

Invasion of the Low Countries

Winston Churchill now replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister of Great Britain. The Allies sent troops into the Low Countries, but by May 14 the Dutch army had to give up the fight. The Netherlands was quickly brought under the rule of German occupation forces. Queen Wilhelmina fled to London, where she formed a government in exile.

Dunkirk evacuation; Italy enters war

On May 13 German armored forces, in a surprise move, broke through the lightly defended Ardennes Forest area north of the Maginot Line. Their columns drove through to the English Channel, cutting off British and French troops in northern France and Belgium.

King Leopold of Belgium surrendered his army on May 28. The Allies had no choice but to attempt an escape by sea. From May 29 to June 4 the Allies evacuated 360,000 soldiers from Dunkirk. Their equipment was left behind.

The battle of France began on June 5. The Germans attacked along a 100-mile (160-kilometer) front from near Laon to the English Channel. They smashed through the French forces and headed for Paris. The French army fell apart. At this point Italy declared war on Britain and France.

Fall of France

The French government moved to Tours on June 11 and later to Bordeaux. The Germans occupied Paris on June 14. The French cabinet, defeatist and deeply divided, asked for an armistice. Marshal Philippe Pétain, the 84-year-old hero of World War I, became premier.

The Franco-German armistice was signed on June 22 in the forest of Compiègne. It was signed in the same railway car in which France had dictated its terms to a beaten Germany 22 years before. The Franco-Italian armistice was signed on June 24. More than half of France was now occupied by German troops. This included France’s entire Atlantic coast and its northern area from Geneva almost to Tours.

Vichy government and Free French

Marshal Pétain built a fascist state with headquarters at Vichy in the unoccupied part of France. The Vichy government worked with the Germans. This was called collaboration.

Some of the French fighting forces escaped to Britain. Called the Free French, they carried on the fight against Germany under the leadership of the French general Charles de Gaulle. Loyal Frenchmen called partisans, also known as the Resistance, secretly supported the Free French in France.

A number of French ships joined the British, and others were interned in British harbors. Ships that resisted were destroyed by the British fleet. The official French government then broke off diplomatic relations with Britain.

The battle of Britain

Hitler expected that the fall of France would cause Britain to surrender. In July he urged Britain to make peace with Germany. Churchill refused.

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At the start of the war Hitler had threatened mass air attacks against England. His threat was finally carried out in August 1940. Almost daily hundreds of German planes swarmed across the English Channel from bases in occupied France to bomb England. At first the attacks targeted British ports, airfields, and radar stations. In early September, however, Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to shift its attacks to London and other cities. These relentless bombing raids are known as the Blitz.

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The German air attack was to be followed by an invasion of England. Hermann Göring, World War I air ace and commander of the German Luftwaffe, had told Hitler his planes could drive the Royal Air Force (RAF) out of the skies. The Luftwaffe failed. The greatly outnumbered RAF destroyed the German bombers at a crippling rate. The battle of Britain, as the RAF defense of the country was called, was one of the most important battles in the history of the world. Never after October 1940 did Hitler seriously consider invading Britain.

Japan threatens in Far East

Japan was an industrialized country, but it had few natural resources. The United States was its principal supplier of raw materials prior to 1939, but the Japanese had already begun to look elsewhere.

Japanese expansion began in 1931–32 with the seizure of Manchuria, in northeastern China. In the following years Japan seized more territory bordering on Manchuria. By 1937 the Japanese had secured most of northeastern China, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing. The atrocities committed against civilians by the Japanese in their seizure of Nanjing were some of the most terrible of the war. The Chinese Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists under Mao Zedong put aside their civil war to oppose the Japanese, but to little avail.

Germany’s conquest of the Netherlands and France left undefended the rich Netherlands Indies and French Indochina. In September Japan threatened to invade French Indochina. By this threat it got air bases there to use in its war against China. The Chinese were isolated by Japan’s seizure of their ports, roads, and railroads.

On September 27 Japan signed the Tripartite, or Axis, Pact with Germany and Italy. The pact joined the three nations in an effort to create a new world order. Their alliance would become known as the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis, or the Axis powers. Under the agreement Germany and Italy would control Europe and Japan would control eastern Asia.

To check Japanese expansion the United States kept its fleet in the Pacific. It also placed economic restraints, or sanctions, on Japan, which depended on the United States for scrap iron, oil, cotton, and metals. In September 1940 the United States banned shipments of many of these materials to Japan. It also threatened to stop giving foreign credits, which Japan used to trade abroad.

Britain also helped to control Japan in the Far East because Britain held strategically located Singapore. This was the key to power in southeastern Asia. However, most of the British fleet was soon sent home to protect the British Isles.

How the United States helped the Allies

The fall of France left Britain and its empire fighting alone. On September 3 the United States transferred 50 old destroyers to Britain. In return the United States got 99-year leases on sites for air and naval bases in the British possessions of Newfoundland, Bermuda, British Guiana, and the British West Indies.

The United States also went to work speeding up its rearmament. A two-ocean navy was planned. An air force of 50,000 airplanes was started. In October the nation adopted peacetime compulsory military service for the first time in its history.

The war in the Mediterranean and Near East

In the winter of 1940–41 Germany and Italy started a campaign against British power in the Mediterranean region. The British position in the Mediterranean was based on control of the two bottleneck passages to the sea—Gilbraltar at the western end and the Suez Canal in the east.

The Axis campaign was launched against Suez. An Italian attack in North Africa was coupled with a German drive through southeastern Europe. The object was to drive the British from the eastern Mediterranean. The Italian offensive was a failure. By early 1941 almost all Mussolini’s East African empire was in British hands.

Germany, however, had more success in the Balkans. It overran Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Greece. It was then able to come to Italy’s aid. The British forces were driven out of Libya.

The War During 1941

Early in 1941 Britain announced that it soon would be unable to pay for the war materials it had been buying from the United States. The United States Congress gave the president authority to lend or lease arms and supplies to countries whose defense he thought important to the security of the United States. Under the Lend-Lease Act a steady stream of planes, tanks, guns, and other war goods rolled off American assembly lines to be sent to Britain and other Allied nations. The United States became known as the Arsenal of Democracy.

Getting these supplies across the Atlantic into the hands of British soldiers became a major problem. United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced he would take any measures necessary to ensure their delivery. On April 9 the United States took Greenland under its protection for the rest of the war. In July American troops replaced the British forces in Iceland.

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On August 9, 1941, Roosevelt met with Winston Churchill on a battleship off the coast of Newfoundland. After five days of talks they issued the Atlantic Charter. Although the United States was not yet officially in the war, this document outlined the Allies’ war aims and called for the “final destruction of Nazi tyranny.” American and British military staffs had already agreed that in the event of a war against both Japan and Germany, the Allies would concentrate on the defeat of Germany first.

Germany invades the Soviet Union

Both Germany and the Soviet Union thought of their nonaggression pact of 1939 as temporary. It gave the Soviets time to build defenses against German attack. It gave Germany peace along its eastern frontiers during the war in the west. Throughout the spring of 1941, however, there were signs that the pact might be broken.

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On June 22 Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Other nations quickly took sides in the ensuing conflict. Italy, Hungary, Finland, and Romania declared war on the Soviet Union. Britain pledged aid to the Soviet Union, and the United States promised war goods.

The new conflict

Germany’s war on the Soviet Union locked in battle the two largest armies in the world. The front extended for 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) from the White Sea to the Black Sea. Germany struck its heaviest blows on three sectors of this long front: (1) from East Prussia through the Baltic states toward Leningrad (now St. Petersburg); (2) from the northern part of German Poland through White Russia toward Moscow; and (3) from the southern part of German Poland through Ukraine toward Kiev.

The Germans drove rapidly forward, cutting off entire Soviet armies. Despite these tremendous losses, strong resistance by the Red Army and guerrilla warfare behind the German lines slowed the German drive. In addition, as the Soviets retreated they destroyed crops, factories, railways, utility plants, and everything else that would be of value to the advancing Nazis. This was known as a “scorched earth” policy.

German advance in the Soviet Union stopped

By the end of November the German assault on the Soviet Union had passed its peak of effectiveness. By December snow and cold weather had stopped the German offensive for the winter. The Soviets launched counteroffensives that drove the Germans back from the outskirts of Moscow and Leningrad.

While Germany was attacking the Soviet Union, British armies in Egypt struck at the Axis forces in Libya. The attack drove the Axis from Benghazi on December 25, Christmas Day. The British, on orders from Churchill, then ceased pressing their advantage and sent many of their forces to Greece to oppose the German invasion there. The British were defeated in Greece and withdrew to the island of Crete, which was later captured by German paratroopers.

Japan moves toward war

The German attack on the Soviets had led the Japanese to believe that German victory was certain. They immediately tried to profit by it. In July 1941 the Vichy government in France gave Japan bases in southern French Indochina. Japan moved in and massed troops against Thailand (Siam).

Other aggressive moves by Japan brought strong protests from the United States and Britain. The Japanese declared that they wanted peace, but they continued their warlike acts. In late July the United States, Britain, and the refugee Dutch government in London placed embargoes on the shipment of oil to Japan.

National Diet Library

General Tojo Hideki became premier of Japan in October. In November he sent a special envoy to seek peace with the United States. This was a trick to throw the United States off guard. Japan was playing for time in which to get its armed forces into position for attack, for the Japanese had already decided on war. Their lack of natural resources meant they had to win quickly or lose to the United States, whose potential power was overwhelming. Japanese leaders were also convinced that once the Americans were involved in the European war, they would be willing to negotiate a peace in the Pacific.

On November 26 American Secretary of State Cordell Hull announced that the United States would give full economic cooperation to Japan. In return, however, he asked that Japan withdraw from China and stop collaborating with the Axis. On December 6 President Roosevelt appealed directly to the Japanese emperor, Hirohito, to work for peace.

The attack on Pearl Harbor

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Early the following afternoon the Japanese ambassador presented Japan’s reply to the American proposal. It accused the United States of standing in the way of the “new order in East Asia.” It ended by saying that further negotiations were useless. Even as he spoke Japanese forces were attacking Americans in Hawaii, in the Philippines, and elsewhere in the Pacific Ocean area.

National Archives, Washington, D.C.

The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Sunday, December 7, 1941. The attack came without warning very early in the morning. It was made by Japanese submarines and carrier-launched aircraft. The United States Navy and Army forces were completely surprised.

U.S. Navy photo

More than 2,300 Americans were killed in the two-hour attack. Eight battleships were sunk or damaged. Many cruisers and destroyers were hit. Most of the United States planes were destroyed on the ground. Japanese losses were 129 men, several submarines, and 29 of the more than 350 airplanes that had made the attack.

Declaration of war

Two and a half hours after the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor the Japanese officially declared war on the United States and Britain. Britain declared war on December 8. The United States Congress declared that a state of war had existed since December 7.

On December 9 China issued a formal war declaration against Japan, Germany, and Italy. On December 11 Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, and the United States Congress voted declarations in return. During the same week nine Latin American nations entered the war against the Axis powers—Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Panama.

Bolivia declared war against Japan. Most other Latin American nations either broke off diplomatic relations with the Axis countries or supported the United States. Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania declared war on the United States. Japan and the Soviet Union carefully avoided war with one another.

On January 1, 1942, the 26 nations then at war with the Axis powers joined in a declaration in which they pledged united efforts and no separate peace until victory was gained. Signed in Washington, D.C., this was called the Declaration by United Nations.

The War During 1942

At the beginning of 1942 the Allies were on the defensive in all the theaters of war. German submarine attacks continued to sink Allied ships and their cargo more quickly than the Allies could replace them. U-boat operations had spread from the area of the British Isles into the eastern Atlantic and then into the central and western Atlantic. This part of the war was called the battle of the Atlantic.

In the Pacific, Guam and Wake islands had fallen to the Japanese in December 1941. The Japanese had also taken Hong Kong from the British, and much of the American fleet lay in ruins at Pearl Harbor.

Battle of the Atlantic Comes to the United States

With the entry of the United States into the war, German U-boats soon began operating off the coast of the United States. Although few in number they had great success, sinking Allied ships off the East coast from New York to Florida, off the Gulf coast, and in the Caribbean. Allied shipping losses were up to 10,000 tons a day and threatened the entire war effort. Not until a convoy system was implemented did the losses begin to decrease.

Japanese Expansion

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The Japanese continued to take new territory in the first half of 1942. In the Philippines there were heroic defensive stands by Filipinos and Americans at Bataan and Corregidor. But the Philippines fell in May. Also by May Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, Burma (Myanmar), and parts of New Britain and New Guinea were in Japanese hands. Australia was seriously threatened. Darwin in northern Australia was heavily bombed.

Against all these advances American and British forces fought desperately. In Burma a small American volunteer group of fliers, the Flying Tigers, shot down hundreds of enemy planes. On April 18, 1942, a small group of carrier-launched Army aircraft bombed Tokyo. Although the attack accomplished little at the time, this was a preview of things to come for the Japanese.

In April the Pacific theater of operations was divided into the Southwest Pacific Area under United States General Douglas MacArthur and the Pacific Ocean Areas under United States Admiral Chester Nimitz. The Southwest Pacific Area included the Dutch East Indies (less Sumatra), the Philippines, Australia, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Solomon Islands. The Pacific Ocean Areas comprised virtually every area not under MacArthur.

Battle of Midway Island

U.S. Navy

In June a strong invasion force of Japanese moved directly against the Hawaiian Islands. American ships, Navy planes, and Army planes from Midway Island fought a four-day battle against the invaders. The Americans lost a carrier, a destroyer, and 150 planes. The invaders, however, were completely defeated. They lost four aircraft carriers, two heavy cruisers, three destroyers, and 330 planes. Meanwhile a Japanese force occupied several of the Aleutian Islands.

The battle of Midway ended serious Japanese expansion and is considered the turning point in the Pacific. Within two months Allied counterattacks began. United States Marines and Army forces attacked the Solomon Islands in August. A month later American and Australian forces started to drive the Japanese out of New Guinea.

The battle for Egypt

In the Mediterranean area the Axis forces had almost complete control of the sea. Supplies for the British forces in Egypt, the Near East, and India had to be shipped around Africa. In January 1942 the German general Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps started a new drive to seize the Suez Canal.

After losing Benghazi in January the British held the Axis forces in check until May. Then a powerful attack engulfed most of the British tank force and moved into Egypt. In July the British were finally able to stop the drive at El Alamein.

In August General Bernard L. Montgomery was named field commander of British forces in Egypt. On October 23 the British started a devastating attack from El Alamein. Rommel’s tank force was routed. By November 6 the British had driven the Axis forces from Egypt. El Alamein is considered the turning point of the war in North Africa.

North Africa invasion

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American and British forces under the command of United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower landed in French North Africa on November 8, 1942. They captured the strategic points in Algeria and Morocco in a few days.

The Vichy government denounced the attack, and the Nazis occupied all France. French navy officers, however, kept the French fleet at Toulon from German use by scuttling it. The French in Africa soon ended all resistance.

The Russian Front in 1942

By the spring of 1942 the Soviet Union had regained one sixth of the territory it had lost in 1941. Then warm weather brought a new German assault. Sevastopol fell to the Germans in July. They also advanced to within 100 miles (160 kilometers) of the Caspian Sea and the important oil fields near the city of Baku. In August the Germans attacked Stalingrad (now Volgograd). The Red Army in Stalingrad was determined to fight to the last man. This bloody resistance stopped the German attack. This was the turning point of the war in Europe. In November the Soviets counterattacked and began to drive the Germans back.

Burma and India

By May 1942 the British had withdrawn from Burma and focused on the defense of India. The Japanese had achieved their objective of cutting off supplies to the Chinese. The Allies continued to build up forces in India and look for ways to supply the Chinese. Lord Louis Mountbatten was appointed as Southeast Asian commander for the Allies.

The War During 1943

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By 1943 the Japanese were on the defensive everywhere in the Pacific. Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands finally fell to United States Marines and Army forces in February 1943. This ended six months of bloody jungle warfare. During the fight for Guadalcanal a large part of the Japanese fleet was destroyed.

In the spring and summer of 1943 General MacArthur and Admiral W.F. (Bull) Halsey worked closely together. Their aim was to drive the Japanese out of eastern New Guinea, the Solomons, and the Bismarck Archipelago. By early fall Allied efforts had cleared an outer ring of positions covering Australia. Meanwhile Americans and Canadians had also cleaned out Japanese forces in the Aleutians.

The Marine attack on Tarawa

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In November a United States Marine-Army force invaded the Gilbert Islands. The attack on Tarawa resulted in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war, costing the Marine Corps some 3,000 casualties.

MacArthur’s troops in the southwest Pacific continued their island-hopping attack into December. By the end of 1943 Australia was no longer threatened by the Japanese. Allied forces would soon be ready to invade the Philippines.

Success in the Mediterranean area

In February 1943 General Eisenhower was appointed commander in chief of the Allied armies in the North African theater of operations. His objective—to oust the Axis forces from North Africa—was accomplished by May.

The Allies invaded Sicily in July. On July 25 Benito Mussolini was forced to resign as premier of Italy. He was then arrested. King Victor Emmanuel appointed Marshal Pietro Badoglio to succeed Mussolini. The British 8th Army invaded southern Italy on September 3. Premier Badoglio’s government surrendered its armed forces unconditionally on September 8. This took Italy out of the war, but the Germans, under Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, continued to fight. The Allies were forced to battle their way up the Italian mainland throughout the fall and early winter of 1943. Mussolini was rescued by a daring German commando raid and put in charge of a puppet government in northern Italy.

Soviet counterattack in 1943

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The Soviet counterattack against the Germans gained full power by January 1943. The Soviets forced the Axis armies from Stalingrad, Kharkiv, and Smolensk. The German defeat at Kursk (July 5–August 23) was the largest tank battle of the war. By the end of the year the Soviets had reached the Polish border of 1939.

The war at sea

The battle of the Atlantic was fiercely fought in 1943. The Germans kept as many as 240 submarines prowling the sea lanes in wolf packs. They sank about 700 merchant ships before the Allies developed several good defenses against undersea attacks. The Allies bombed German submarine bases without letup and convoyed ships with long-range bombers. There were also major advances in radar and sonar. Another critical factor in defeating the U-boats was the British ability to read top-secret German radio communications. The British had broken the German “Enigma” code used to control the U-boats and also to send important high command messages. The resulting intelligence, code named “Ultra,” was also provided to American and British commanders in France and Italy. By the end of the year the Allies had almost ended the submarine menace in the Atlantic.

The war in the air

The Allies were producing enough airplanes by 1943 to carry the air war into the heart of Germany. The mass bombing of targets deep in enemy territory was called strategic bombing. The combined British-American bombing attacks began to take their toll on German industry.

Quadrant/Flight

In 1940 the Hurricane and Spitfire fighter aircraft of the RAF had proved equal to German fighters such as the Messerschmitt ME-109. The first American planes were not as effective, but the later Thunderbolt (P-47) and Mustang (P-51) were excellent.

For bombers the British used Lancasters and Halifaxes, which could carry one-ton and two-ton “blockbusters.” Early in the war the British made daylight bombing raids, but they suffered crippling losses. They then turned to night raids.

The American 8th Air Force preferred daylight bombing raids because targets could be hit more effectively. Americans flew in large numbers and in tight formations. The planes they used were the Flying Fortress (B-17) and the Liberator (B-24).

At first the Americans suffered serious losses just as the British had. When the Mustang fighter plane was brought into the theater, however, they were able to ward off attacks by the German fighters. The Mustang, widely regarded as the best fighter of the war, could carry more fuel than other fighters and escort the bombers on their deepest raids.

Other kinds of air warfare

The Americans also developed air transport on a worldwide scale. By the end of the war the United States Army Air Transport Command, with almost 3,000 planes, was flying a global network of 188,000 miles (303,000 kilometers) of routes. The Navy flew 420 planes over 65,000 miles (105,000 kilometers) of routes. In the China-Burma-India theater the 10th Air Force flew over the “hump” of the Himalayas, carrying supplies from India to China.

By 1943 the Allies were also using planes to carry their combat troops into action. Large transports (C-47s) carried paratroops who were dropped by parachute over their objectives. Airborne troops were also carried in gliders towed by transport planes. The Germans had pioneered the use of parachute and glider troops early in the war.

The War During 1944

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In February 1944 Admiral Nimitz’s forces advanced more than 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) from Hawaii to seize Kwajalein atoll and Enewetak in the Marshall Islands. The next advance was some 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) to the Marianas. By mid-August Saipan, Tinian, and Guam had fallen to the Allies. New, long-range Superfortress planes (B-29s) were used to bomb Japan. Plans were made to seize the Philippines as a base for the invasion of Japan.

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In October General MacArthur’s forces invaded the Philippines at the island of Leyte. After savage fighting by land, sea, and air forces the conquest of Leyte was complete about Christmas Day 1944.

In China, Chiang Kai-shek’s forces continued to be on the defensive. A Japanese attack toward Changsha, begun on May 27, won control not only of a stretch of the Beijing-Hankou railroad but also of several of the airfields from which the Americans had been bombing the Japanese.

Soviet advances

Throughout the early months of 1944 the main pressure upon the Germans was caused by Soviet attacks. One drive carried the Soviet armies to the Baltic states by spring. In the southwest they also drove deep into Ukraine.

Other drives neutralized Finland, took Minsk and Pinsk in Poland, and forced Romania to ask for peace. The Soviet Union also forced Romania to declare war on Germany on August 24. When the Soviets invaded Bulgaria in September that country also declared war on Germany. The Soviets next plunged into Yugoslavia to unite with Yugoslav partisan forces under Marshal Tito. The Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, was captured on October 20. The year ended on the Eastern Front with the Germans driven back to their own borders.

The Italian campaign

In late 1943, following a meeting in Tehran between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, General Eisenhower was named supreme Allied commander in western Europe. Britain’s General Alexander was made commander of the Allied forces in Italy.

An invasion force was landed at Anzio in January. Allied forces were pinned down on the beachhead, and by spring the attack looked hopeless. In May, however, a heavy attack broke through south of Cassino. The attackers joined the forces at Anzio and swept on to take Rome in June.

The Allies now invaded France, and the Italian campaign became a containing operation. Allied troop strength there was kept low, but the forces were charged with keeping German troops diverted from the main theater of war in France.

The Normandy invasion

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Early on the morning of June 6 an invasion fleet of some 7,000 ships landed American, British, and Canadian divisions on Normandy beaches. Airborne divisions dropped behind the German lines. In the air Allies had complete command. This invasion was decisive and the outcome of the war in Europe depended upon its success.

U.S. Army Photo

In the first week the Allies established beachheads between Cherbourg and the city of Caen along a 60-mile- (97-kilometer-) wide strip. Within a week they drove about 20 miles (32 kilometers) inland. Casualties for the landing were about 15,000 out of some 150,000 engaged. The Germans never managed to mount a serious counterattack.

The British captured Caen on July 9. The Americans broke out of their beachhead positions on July 25. Armored columns headed inland, and Paris fell to the Allies on August 25. Victory seemed to be at hand, but soon the Allies outran their supply lines and German resistance increased.

The final German defense efforts

The Germans began to use new weapons against England: flying robotic bombs, called V-1s, launched from bases in France, and ballistic missiles, called V-2s, launched from the Netherlands. The V-bombs injured and killed many English civilians and caused great damage but had no effect on the outcome of the war (seeguided missiles). East of the Rhine the Germans battled grimly to keep the Allies from entering Germany. In September, however, Allied troops crossed the German border east of Aachen.

As the cold, wet season advanced the Allied drive slowed down. Aided by the bad weather, the Germans launched a surprise counterattack on December 16. The main attack came south of Aachen in the Ardennes. The battle of the Bulge, as this attack was called, ended in final German defeat in this region. The year ended with the Allied forces in the west and east ready to throw their weight into the drive that would crush Nazi power.

The War During 1945

After driving the Germans from the Ardennes bulge the Allied armies advanced into Germany. By the end of March 1945 the Americans and British had advanced halfway across Germany.

The Germans also collapsed on other fronts. Budapest fell to the Soviets in February and Vienna in April. In Italy Mussolini was caught and shot by partisans on April 28. The next day the Germans in Italy surrendered unconditionally.

Hitler commits suicide; Germans surrender

Despite the utter hopelessness of the German cause Hitler remained defiant in his underground Berlin bunker. The Soviets attacked Berlin on April 21. To escape capture by the Soviets Hitler committed suicide the night of April 30.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

On May 4 British General Bernard Montgomery received the surrender of the Germans in Denmark, the Netherlands, and northwestern Germany. General Alfred Jodl signed a surrender at Reims on May 7. On May 8 Churchill, Stalin, and Harry S. Truman, the new U.S. president, announced that General Wilhelm Keitel had surrendered unconditionally the day before. Now all attention turned to the Far East.

Defeat of Japan

In December 1944 British General William Slim’s 14th Army launched a campaign to drive the Japanese from Burma. By May 1945 they had succeeded, recapturing Rangoon (Yangon). Chinese forces also went on the attack, and by April the entire Burma Road, from Mandalay to China, was open.

Early in 1945 General MacArthur’s forces in the Pacific landed an invasion force at Lingayen Gulf in Luzon, in the Philippines. Effective resistance in Manila ended in late February. It took many months, however, for the Americans to clear out the last pockets of fanatical Japanese resistance in the Philippines.

U.S. Department of Defense

Meanwhile Admiral Nimitz’s forces seized Iwo Jima and Okinawa. At Iwo Jima Marine casualties were the heaviest suffered in any island invasion, more than 20,000. During the Okinawa campaign the Navy was attacked by kamikaze (suicide) planes. The pilots of these planes deliberately flew them into American ships.

On July 26 Allied leaders met in Potsdam, Germany. They demanded that Japan immediately surrender or face utter destruction. Japan fought on. On August 8 the Soviet Union attacked the Japanese in Manchuria.

U.S. Department of Energy

At this point American scientists made a significant contribution to the war effort. During the war they had developed and successfully tested an atomic bomb. President Truman decided to use the bomb to avoid the millions of casualties expected if the Allies had to invade Japan. On August 6 a B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, a major munitions center, destroying about three fifths of the city. When the Japanese still refused to surrender, a more powerful atomic bomb was dropped on the port city of Nagasaki, leaving it in ruins. As many as 120,000 people died in these two attacks.

After the bombing of Nagasaki, Emperor Hirohito ordered the surrender of Japan. The Japanese accepted Allied terms on August 15. On September 2, 1945 (this date was September 1 in the United States), Japan formally surrendered aboard the battleship Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. General MacArthur accepted the surrender as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers.

General MacArthur immediately established military occupation of the empire. American troops went ashore to liberate war prisoners and to make certain that the Japanese complied with the terms of surrender. All Japanese military forces were disarmed and sent home. The emperor and other government officials had to obey General MacArthur’s orders. Many of Japan’s war leaders were arrested and held for trial. Hirohito was not among them; his leadership was considered essential to a peaceful occupation.

Key Campaigns and Battles of World War II

The first part of this section describes military actions in Europe and North Africa. The rest is devoted to events in the Pacific area and in the Far Eastern theater of operations.

Europe and North Africa

Battle of Poland; early stalemate

On September 1, 1939, the German Luftwaffe crossed the Polish frontier. Poland’s air force was destroyed on the ground. On the same day swift-moving German Panzer divisions smashed into Poland from three directions. The Polish army was the fifth largest in Europe. It was not equipped, however, to meet the up-to-date mechanized units of the Nazis. The Germans crushed organized opposition in 16 days. The Soviet Union attacked Poland from the east on September 17. Warsaw surrendered on September 27. From September 1, 1939, until May 10, 1940, there was no major action along the Western Front. French troops did not want to attack the strong German Siegfried Line. The Germans did not want to make an assault on the so-called “impregnable” French Maginot Line. Meanwhile the Russo-Finnish war (November 30, 1939–March 12, 1940) gave the Soviet Union important parts of Finnish territory.

Conquest of Norway; battle of Flanders

On April 9, 1940, the Nazis occupied Denmark without opposition. On the same day they attacked Norway. Landing airborne infantry, parachute troops, and amphibious forces at many points, the Germans gained a solid foothold the first day of the attack. A group of Norwegian traitors led by Maj. Vidkun Quisling assisted the invaders. British troops landed on April 15 to aid the Norwegian forces, but the swift German advance forced them to flee central Norway May 1–3 and evacuate Narvik on June 9. This ended Allied resistance in Norway.

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The Germans started an offensive against France on May 10, 1940. To protect their right flank the Germans roared into the Netherlands and Belgium. The same day German forces, led by Erwin Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division, struck at the weak extension of the Maginot Line in the Ardennes Forest. Both attacks met quick success. Dutch resistance was crushed in four days, while to the south Nazi armored spearheads drove 220 miles (350 kilometers) to reach the French coast at Abbeville on May 21. The maneuver trapped the entire left wing of the Allied armies in a small pocket on the English Channel. Under heavy fire from German aircraft and artillery a hastily assembled fleet evacuated more than 360,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk to England between May 29 and June 4, 1940, leaving all their heavy equipment and artillery on the beach.

Battle of France; battle of Britain

German Federal Archive (Bundesarchiv), Bild 146-1978-062-24

The defeat in the battle of Flanders left the French helpless to halt the next German blow. On June 5, 1940, the Germans attacked along a 100-mile (160-kilometer) front. One armored spearhead raced south along the French coast closing the Channel ports to possible British aid. In the center the Germans knifed through the Somme and Aisne river lines and smashed toward Paris from east and west. Another column turned to the left after breaking through at Sedan and took the Maginot Line from the flank and rear. Paris fell to the Germans on June 14, and the French asked for surrender terms on June 17. Meanwhile Italy declared war on France on June 10 but engaged in no major action.

Late in 1940 Germany lost its first battle of the war when Britain fought off a savage air campaign. On August 8, 1940, Hitler launched the air assault on England to soften the British Isles for invasion and gain the necessary air superiority. Huge formations of German bombers crossed the English Channel almost daily to blast seaports, industrial cities, and airfields.

Despite this steady rain of bombs the British stood firm. Possessing the most advanced radar system in the world, the RAF had early warning of the raids and was able to mount devastating counterattacks. By mid-September the RAF had demonstrated that the Luftwaffe could not dominate the skies over Britain. British fighters were shooting down German bombers faster than German industry could produce them. The Battle of Britain was thus won, and Hitler indefinitely postponed the invasion of England. The British had lost more than 900 fighters but had shot down about 1,700 German aircraft.

New Times Paris Bureau Collection/USIA/NARA

During the following winter the Luftwaffe maintained a bombing offensive, carrying out night-bombing attacks on Britain’s industrial cities. The Blitz, as these raids came to be called, spread terror and destruction, especially in London, but had little military value. By February 1941 the offensive had declined, but in March and April there was a revival, and nearly 10,000 sorties were flown, with heavy attacks made on London. Thereafter German air operations over England withered.

German drive through the Balkans; battle of the Atlantic

On April 6, 1941, the Nazi war machine drove into Yugoslavia and Greece to complete Hitler’s plans for the conquest of the Balkans and the domination of the Mediterranean. Yugoslavia was overrun by April 17. Greece surrendered on April 30. Of the 74,000 British troops in Greece only about 44,000 escaped. Many of these fled to Crete, which was a refueling stop and support base for the fighting in Greece. These troops were captured or killed when German airborne troops took that island between May 20 and June 1, 1941. Although the German campaign in the Balkans was successful, it delayed an invasion of the Soviet Union for several crucial months.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph

Early in the war Germany blockaded Europe by attacking Allied ships with land-based planes and submarines. The Allies struck back by convoying ships with destroyers and planes from escort carriers. They were helped immeasurably by the fact that the British had broken the top-secret German code “Enigma,” used to direct submarine operations, and by improvements in radar and sonar. These defenses brought the submarine and air attacks under control by 1942. The Germans also tried to use surface raiders to interfere with Allied shipping, but this threat ended with the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941.

Battles of El Alamein and Stalingrad

Italian forces and Rommel’s Afrika Korps entered Egypt in a drive for the Suez Canal in June 1942. The British 8th Army held fast at El Alamein, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of Alexandria. On October 23 British infantry cut through the Axis lines in a bayonet charge that opened the way for an armored breakthrough. The attack forced the Axis back 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) across the desert.

The Germans attacked Stalingrad (now Volgograd) on August 24, 1942. The Soviets resisted street by street and house by house. Control of Stalingrad became a personal goal for both Stalin and Hitler. The powerful German 6th Army under General Friedrich von Paulus spent itself in a futile effort to dislodge the Soviet forces. The Soviets, led by Marshal Georgi Zhukov, counterattacked on November 19, and by February 2, 1943, they had killed or captured 330,000 Germans and other Axis soldiers in one of the costliest battles of the war.

Invasion of North Africa; battle of Tunisia

British and Americans troops landed at Algiers, Oran, and Casablanca in French North Africa on November 8, 1942. This was called Operation Torch. The invaders met little resistance and quickly drove inland. On November 15 the French in Africa joined the Allies.

American forces met their first defeat at the hands of the Germans in the battle of Kasserine Pass (February 14–25, 1943). They rallied, however, to push through Tunisia. On April 7 United States troops met the British 8th Army as it advanced from the east. The Allies forced 250,000 Germans and Italians to surrender near Cape Bon on May 12.

Battle of Sicily; bombing of Ploesti

On July 10, 1943, the British and the Americans launched Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. The British 8th Army landed at Cape Passero, and the United States 7th Army led by General George S. Patton won a beachhead at Gela. The Americans cut through the center of the island and swept up the western coast while the British, under Montgomery, went up the eastern coast. The Americans ended the campaign by capturing Messina on August 17.

On August 1, 1943, 178 American B-24 (Liberator) bombers flew a 2,400-mile (3,900-kilometer) round trip from Libya to bomb Ploesti, Romania. The low-level attack did severe damage to the chief oil center of Hitler’s Europe, but the United States 9th Air Force lost 54 planes in the raid. A year later the Ploesti target was knocked out in a savage three-day assault that cost 2,277 American airmen and 270 planes.

Battles of Salerno and Cassino

The British 8th Army invaded Italy at the toe of the boot on September 3, 1943 (Operation Avalanche). Six days later the American 5th Army landed at Salerno, south of Naples. For six days German armor attacked savagely, but naval gunfire and close air support helped the invaders to break out of the beachhead September 15. The next day they joined the 8th Army coming from the south. The capture of Naples on October 1 rounded out this campaign and opened the way for a bitter winter struggle at Monte Cassino.

By December 1943 the 5th Army advance in Italy was stopped at the Gustav Line based on Cassino. Despite bombardment by air and artillery the Germans clung to their defenses. On January 22, 1944, Allied troops landed behind the Gustav Line at Anzio but failed to break the stalemate. Finally, on May 18, the Allies overran Cassino. A week later the Cassino troops linked up with the Anzio forces. They then advanced 75 miles (120 kilometers) to take Rome on June 4.

Invasion of Normandy; battle of the hedgerows

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The long-awaited invasion of Europe from the west came in June 1944. For almost three years bombers had pounded the French and German coasts. Then on June 6, 1944—known as D-Day—the Allies stormed ashore at Normandy from a fleet of about 4,000 ships. This was called Operation Overlord. United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower was in overall command.

From the Normandy beaches the Allies thrust inland. They faced stiff German resistance at every hedgerow. Relentless attacks slowly forced the Germans back. American infantry captured Cherbourg on June 27.

Breakthrough at St.-Lô

On July 18, 1944, the United States 1st Army fought its way into St.-Lô where formidable German defenses blocked the advance. But after Allied planes delivered a crushing air bombardment, the 1st Army smashed through the German lines and broke out of the beachhead on July 25. Racing through the gap General Patton’s 3rd Army captured Avranches on July 31. Four days later a daring attack by American tanks cut off the Brittany Peninsula. Meanwhile on July 18 the British and Canadians crossed the Orne River at Caen and struck south.

On the left flank of the 3rd Army the XV Corps pushed east to capture Le Mans on August 9 and then moved north to Argentan. Meanwhile the Canadian 1st Army advanced south to Falaise. By August 17 these two Allied thrusts had trapped the German 7th Army in a pocket between Argentan and Falaise. Five days later the Allies had captured 100,000 prisoners and killed many others who tried to escape.

Capture of Paris; invasion of southern France

The defeat of Falaise-Argentan broke the back of the German defenses in France. The 3rd Army then knifed across France. By August 20 the French capital was surrounded. The German garrison surrendered on August 25, and General de Gaulle and his Free French forces were able to enter the city without fighting.

The American 7th Army invaded southern France in Operation Anvil on August 15, 1944. American infantry divisions from Italy made the attack. They were aided by American paratroops and British and French units. Overcoming weak German defenses, the 7th Army raced up the Rhone Valley to join the 3rd Army near Dijon on September 11, 1944.

Battle of Aachen

Aachen was the first large German city to be taken. On October 11, 1944, the veteran 1st Infantry Division of the United States 1st Army entered the outskirts of Aachen. The German defenders fought back savagely under Hitler’s order to resist to the last man. They were not driven out until October 21. The city lay in ruins. Meanwhile divisions of the 1st Allied Airborne Army had crossed the Rhine in the Nijmegen-Arnhem area on September 20 but were driven back five days later.

Battle of the Bulge

U.S. Army

On December 16, 1944, the Germans launched a furious counterattack in the Ardennes. Twenty-four German divisions drove a bulge 60 miles (97 kilometers) wide and 45 miles (72 kilometers) deep into the American lines. They had been able to achieve complete surprise due to bad weather, which grounded Allied planes, excellent deception measures, and the failure of Allied intelligence.

The heroic resistance of Allied units, however, finally halted the Germans. The United States 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 99th Infantry divisions held the shoulders of the bulge at Monschau and Echternach. Other brave stands were made at St. Vith by the 7th Armored Division and at Bastogne by the 101st Airborne Division and Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division. On December 26 the 4th Armored Division relieved encircled Bastogne, ending the crisis. The 1st and 3rd armies eliminated the bulge during January. The Germans lost 220,000 soldiers and 1,400 tanks and assault guns. Allied casualties totaled 40,000.

Attacking Germany from the air

Department of Defense/National Archives, Washington, D.C.

The Allies had carried out a strategic bombing campaign against Germany. This had two goals: to destroy the German war industry and to break the morale of German civilians. When the Allies plunged into Germany they found firsthand evidence of the terrible destruction caused by the American and British saturation bombing raids. Industrial centers were crushed by a steady storm of bombs. Bridges were blown, railroad yards smashed, and harbors filled with the debris of sunken ships.

Most of this destruction took place in the later stages of the war. Of the 2,697,473 tons of bombs dropped on Nazi-held Europe less than one fifth fell before 1944 and less than one third before July 1944. In these attacks Allied planners had picked their targets carefully. Of the entire bomb tonnage 32.1 percent was dropped on transportation targets and 9.3 percent on oil, chemical, and rubber centers. Other vital targets had included ball-bearing factories, optical factories, and aircraft and steel industries. Meanwhile the Luftwaffe had been all but swept from the skies by Allied fighter planes.

Crossing the Rhine; the drive through Germany

Stock footage courtesy The WPA Film Library

On February 10, 1945, a long, grinding drive by U.S. forces through the Hürtgen Forest took dams on the upper Roer River and ended danger of flooding the troops below. The 1st Army attacked and reached the Rhine at Cologne on March 7. The same day the United States 9th Armored Division captured the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen intact. This action breached the last natural German defensive position. In the meantime Patton’s 3rd Army swept the Germans from the Saar and the Palatinate and unexpectedly crossed the Rhine near Oppenheim. By March 31 all seven Allied armies were advancing deep into Germany.

After crossing the Rhine the Americans sprang a trap on the defending Germans. North of the Ruhr the 9th Army drove straight east while the 1st Army broke out of their Remagen bridgehead and struck east and north. The two columns joined at Paderborn on April 1, cutting off German forces in the Ruhr. While the 15th Army held the west face of the pocket along the Rhine, units from the 1st and 9th armies drove in to crush the Germans. They took more than 300,000 prisoners.

The Canadian 1st Army routed the Germans in the Netherlands, and the British, Americans, and French swept through Germany. On April 25 United States and Soviet forces met at Torgau on the Elbe River. This sealed the fate of Germany. Meanwhile the 3rd and 7th armies plunged into Czechoslovakia and Austria.

Final attack in Italy

Fighting their way northward the Allies won campaigns in the Rome-Arno region (January 22–September 9, 1944) and in the north Apennines (September 10, 1944–April 4, 1945). On April 9 they launched Operation Grapeshot, a mass assault designed to smash the Germans in northern Italy. The American 5th and the British 8th armies broke through German defenses and drove them across the Po River on April 23.

The Allies accepted the surrender of all German forces in Italy on April 29. The day before, Mussolini had been captured and killed by Italian partisans. Total Axis losses in Italy were 86,000 soldiers killed, 15,000 permanently disabled, and about 357,000 captured.

Fall of Berlin

The Soviet counteroffensive launched at Stalingrad slowly threw back the Germans along the entire front from Leningrad to Sevastopol. During the autumn of 1944 the crushing Soviet advance forced the Germans to withdraw from the Balkans. In January 1945 the Soviets pushed across the German frontier.

On April 21 the Red Army attacked Berlin. Here the Nazis offered their last bitter resistance, defending the city with all their dying strength. But on May 2 the Soviet forces completed the conquest of the burned and battered German capital in the final decisive action in the European theater. Hitler committed suicide on April 30, and German forces surrendered on May 7.

The Pacific and Far East

Times and dates for the Pacific theater of war are given as of the time zone where the action took place.

The attack on Pearl Harbor

In a surprise attack the Japanese struck at the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The Japanese had used a similar surprise attack to start the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. The Japanese force was made up of some 350 planes from six carriers. Several submarines also joined in the two-hour attack. The attack, planned by Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, commander of the Japanese navy, sank the battleships Arizona and Oklahoma and severely damaged six other battleships. Some 190 Army and Navy airplanes were destroyed on the ground. Japanese losses were 129 men, several submarines, and 29 planes. More than 2,300 Americans were killed. Fortunately for the Americans, none of their aircraft carriers was present, because carriers would change the way war was fought at sea.

Battle of Wake Island

The Japanese immediately followed up the advantage gained with the success of Pearl Harbor. Their goal was to win the Pacific before the Allies could regroup. On December 8, 1941, the Japanese struck at Wake Island, a tiny American outpost 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) west of Honolulu, which was forced to surrender on December 23. Guam, the first American possession lost, had already fallen on December 11, 1941.

Malaya and Singapore

The Japanese 25th army, under General Yamashita Tomoyuki, invaded Malaya on December 8, 1941, and overran the peninsula in an eight-week campaign. Their experience in jungle fighting and ability to make amphibious landings behind the British forces were key to their success. When the British battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse tried to intercept Japanese troop convoys, Japanese aircraft sank them. This ended British naval efforts in the area.

On February 2, 1942, the Japanese attacked the British naval base on Singapore. The island was prepared to resist assault from the sea but not from the skies or the jungles in the rear. Singapore surrendered on February 15, exposing the East Indies and the Indian Ocean to the Japanese advance.

Siege of Bataan

NARA

Japanese forces under General Homma Masaharu landed on northern and southern Luzon in the Philippines during December 10–24, 1941. To avoid encirclement General MacArthur abandoned Manila and withdrew his troops to the rugged peninsula of Bataan on January 2, 1942. Here about 25,000 American and Filipino regulars and several thousand reservists held out until April 9. Then more than 35,000 exhausted defenders surrendered the peninsula. Later up to 10,000 of these prisoners died on an infamous “death march” to prison camps. United States General Jonathan M. Wainwright and others escaped to Corregidor and continued their delaying action there, but on May 6 the Japanese overran the island and captured an additional 15,000 Americans and Filipinos. In March President Roosevelt had ordered MacArthur to Australia to take over defenses there.

Battle of the Coral Sea

On May 4–8, 1942, an American naval task force battled a Japanese invasion fleet in the Coral Sea, northeast of Australia. Surface ships did not exchange a shot. Action was confined to long-range attacks by carrier planes. American planes were based on the Lexington and the Yorktown. The Japanese withdrew on May 8. This was the first Japanese setback of the war. American losses included the Lexington, one destroyer, one tanker, 74 planes, and 543 men.

The decisive battle of Midway

National Archives, Washington, D.C.

On June 3–6, 1942, two American naval task forces and land-based planes from Midway Island intercepted 160 Japanese ships west of Midway. In a pitched air-sea battle the Japanese were repulsed, losing four carriers, two heavy cruisers, three destroyers, and 330 planes. This decisive defeat stopped the Japanese eastward advance in the Pacific. It is considered the turning point of the war in that theater. American losses included the carrier Yorktown, one destroyer, 150 planes, and 307 men.

Solomon Islands campaign; battle of Papua

UPI/Bettmann Archive

On August 7, 1942, the 1st Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal and seized Henderson Field. An additional Marine division and two Army divisions later reinforced them. After six months of bloody jungle warfare the Americans wiped out the last Japanese units on February 8, 1943. New Georgia was taken on August 6, 1943, by U.S. Army forces. Bougainville was invaded on November 1, 1943, by the Marines, later reinforced by three Army infantry divisions.

In a series of five naval engagements between August and November, the U.S. Navy protected the Solomon Islands from invasion. A large portion of the Japanese fleet was destroyed but at a heavy cost in American ships. In the battle of Savo Island (August 8–9), a Japanese night attack was repulsed, but the United States lost three cruisers. In the battle of the Eastern Solomons (August 23–25), American carrier planes forced the Japanese fleet to withdraw. The battle of Cape Esperance (October 11–12) was an American night attack that again drove off the Japanese. In the battle of Santa Cruz Island (October 26), American and Japanese carriers exchanged blows; two Japanese carriers were sunk and about 100 planes shot down at a cost of the U.S. carrier Hornet and 74 planes. In the battle of Guadalcanal (November 13–15), Japanese attacks were repulsed with heavy losses on both sides, including two American cruisers; another American cruiser was sunk two weeks later off Lunga Point.

The Japanese attack in New Guinea had carried to within 30 miles (48 kilometers) of the Allied base of Port Moresby by September 12, 1942. But American and Australian troops then drove the Japanese back over the Kokoda Trail through the Owen Stanley Mountains. Fighting in jungles and swamps, the Allies took Buna (December 14, 1942) and Sanananda (January 22, 1943) in Papua.

Battle of the Aleutians; New Guinea campaign

On June 4–6, 1942, the Japanese occupied the Aleutian Islands in the farthest point of their drive toward Alaska. Almost a year later, on May 11, 1943, the United States 7th Infantry Division bypassed Kiska and stormed ashore on Attu. In bitter, hand-to-hand fighting they wiped out the entire Japanese garrison by May 31. Kiska was retaken without opposition on August 15, 1943.

From June 1943 to July 1944 the United States 6th Army, led by General Walter Krueger, leapfrogged along the northern shore of New Guinea with amphibious, airborne, and overland attacks. This advance pushed 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) closer to Japan and bypassed 135,000 enemy troops.

Battles of the Gilberts and Marshalls

U.S. Department of Defense

The seizing of the Gilberts (Operation Galvanic) opened the American advance in the central Pacific. Marines invaded Tarawa on November 21, 1943, in the face of murderous crossfire from heavily fortified pillboxes. The island was conquered in four days at a cost of 913 Marine dead and 2,000 wounded.

The invasion of the Marshall Islands (Operation Flintlock) marked the first conquest of Japanese territory. Despite bitter enemy resistance the Marines took Namur, Roi, Kwajalein, and Enewetak between January 31 and February 22, 1944.

Battle of the Marianas

U.S. Department of Defense

Supported by the United States 3rd Fleet, American ground troops assaulted the Mariana Islands. On June 15, 1944, Army and Marine divisions invaded Saipan. The Japanese resisted savagely with machine guns, small arms, and light mortars emplaced in caves and concrete pillboxes. The last desperate banzai charge was smashed on July 7 and all organized opposition ceased two days later.

Army and Marine divisions landed on Guam on July 21 and overran the island by August 10. Tinian was taken by the Marines (July 24–August 1). On November 24, 1944, B-29 Superfortresses delivered their first major strike against Japan from bases on Guam and Saipan.

Battle of the Philippine Sea

The United States invasion of Saipan provoked the Japanese navy to counterattack, but the resulting battle of the Philippine Sea effectively eliminated Japanese carrier power. On June 19, American planes from 15 carriers of Task Force 58 destroyed 402 Japanese aircraft. Four United States ships suffered minor damage and 17 planes were lost. The following day American carrier planes located the Japanese fleet farther to the west. They destroyed about 300 more Japanese planes and sank two carriers, two destroyers, and one tanker and crippled 11 other vessels. Japanese antiaircraft fire and fighter planes shot down 16 American aircraft.

Battles of Burma, the Palaus

The 1942 Japanese conquest of Burma cut the Allied ground route to China. It ran by rail from Rangoon to Lashio and then over the Burma Road to Kunming. In the fall of 1943 the Allies launched Operation Capital to reopen a road into China.

Advancing from Assam, India, two American-trained Chinese divisions drove down the Hukawng Valley in northern Burma during October 1943. Behind the attacking Chinese, American engineers blasted out the new Ledo Road. Merrill’s Marauders, a specially selected American combat team landed by parachutes and gliders, reinforced the Chinese in February 1944. A similar British force, known as Chindits or Wingate’s Raiders, protected the southern flank of the advance. On August 3, 1944, the veteran Allied jungle fighters captured Myitkyina. They cleared the way to Mongyu by January 1945.

On September 15, 1944, U.S. Marines secured a beachhead on Peleliu Island in the Palau group. Army units reinforced the Marines on September 22. Japanese forces held out until mid-October.

Battle of China

The Japanese attack on China, begun in 1937, was intensified late in 1944 in an effort to wipe out forward bases of the United States 14th Air Force. From September 8 to November 26, 1944, the Japanese overran seven large air bases.

Less than a month later enemy columns had split unoccupied China, opening up a Japanese-dominated route from Malaya north to Korea. In the spring of 1945 the Chinese began a counteroffensive that regained much of the territory lost the previous year. Important elements in this drive were 35 divisions that United States General Joseph Stilwell had helped to train and equip. Air support was provided by the 14th Air Force, based at Kunming, and the 10th Air Force, brought from India to Luichow.

Battles of Leyte and Leyte Gulf

The United States 6th Army invaded the east coast of Leyte on October 20, 1944. Enemy resistance ended on December 26, 1944, but mopping-up operations continued for many weeks. Japanese naval forces challenged the Leyte landings in a series of three engagements on October 23–26, 1944. The United States 3rd and 7th fleets and a task force led by Admiral Marc A. Mitscher defeated the Japanese in all three engagements. Japan no longer had an effective navy. By this time, U.S. submarines had also effectively blockaded the home islands.

Battle of Luzon

On January 9, 1945, General Krueger’s 6th Army landed at Lingayen Gulf. The 8th Army, led by General Robert L. Eichelberger, landed at Subic Bay on January 29 and at Batangas two days later. These attacks trapped the Japanese in a giant pincers, but they fought back fiercely in Manila, at Balete Pass, and in the Cagayan Valley.

Organized Japanese resistance ended on June 28, but large pockets of the enemy held out for many months. American prisoners were freed at Santo Tomás, Cabanatuan, Los Baños, and Baguio.

Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa

Joe Rosenthal/AP

U.S. Marines invaded Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. It was conquered after desperate fighting on March 16. United States losses were 4,189 killed, 15,308 wounded, and 441 missing. Japanese losses were 22,000 killed and captured.

U.S. Department of Defense

U.S. Department of Defense

General Simon Buckner’s 10th Army landed along the western coast of Okinawa on April 1, 1945. This Army-Marine force fought for 79 days, during which time they advanced only 14 miles (23 kilometers). Enemy resistance finally ended on June 21. Japanese losses were 109,629 killed and 7,871 captured. American casualties totaled 39,000, including 10,000 naval personnel of the supporting 5th Fleet. This fleet had been attacked by Japanese kamikaze planes. Twenty-six American ships were sunk and 168 were damaged.

Atomic bombs hit Japan

During July 1945, B-29 Superfortresses from the Marianas flew 1,200 sorties a week against the Japanese homeland. Other planes flew from recently captured Okinawa and Iwo Jima to join in the aerial assault. Meanwhile the 3rd Fleet sailed boldly into Japanese coastal waters and hammered targets with its guns and planes. The American intent was to make the Japanese believe that a general invasion was imminent.

The assault never happened. Fanatical Japanese resistance on Luzon, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa convinced American military planners that an invasion of the Japanese homeland would result in hundreds of thousands of Allied and Japanese casualties. To avoid these enormous losses, another, more devastating, means was found to end the war. On August 6 a B-29 named Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, at the southern end of Honshu. The explosion vaporized everything in the immediate vicinity, completely burned about 4.4 square miles (11.4 square kilometers) of the city, and killed between 70,000 and 80,000 people. About 70,000 more were wounded. With an American victory seemingly assured, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan two days later.

National Archives, Washington, D.C.

The Japanese still would not surrender. On August 9 a second atomic bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki. It killed about 40,000 people and injured a similar number. The next day Hirohito, the Japanese emperor, ordered his government to ask for peace. Japan agreed to the terms of surrender on August 15 (the 14th in the United States), which is remembered as V-J (Victory over Japan) Day. The formal surrender was signed on September 2.

Consequences of the War

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When World War II ended many countries throughout the world had to rebuild their war-damaged cities and lands. Some of the nations who won the war suffered almost as much as those who lost it.

The western Soviet Union and Poland had undergone as much war damage as Germany. Britain, France, and the Netherlands were as battered as Italy. In China and the Philippine Islands the losses were as great as in Japan.

The losses in life, money, resources, and production were so great they can only be estimated. In addition throughout Europe and eastern Asia death by famine and disease threatened the lives of people who had survived the war.

The Costs of the War

No one will ever know for certain the war cost in the number of people killed, disabled, and wounded. Many nations could not accurately count their losses.

Alessandro0770—iStock Editorial/Thinkstock

Estimates of the total number of deaths range from about 35 million to 60 million. The military forces of the Allies and the Axis reported a total of about 14.5 million killed. The civilian population suffered even more than the military through air bombings, starvation, and epidemics. Campaigns of genocide in Europe and Asia were responsible for millions of deaths (seeHolocaust). Estimated civilian deaths amounted to at least 20 million. The countries with the greatest number of civilian losses were the Soviet Union, 7 million; Poland, 5.7 million; China, 2.2 million; Yugoslavia, 1.2 million; Germany, 780,000; and Japan, 672,000. More than 12 million people were left homeless. For millions, suffering and hardship continued long after the war.

Total military costs were more than 1 trillion dollars. Property damage was estimated at almost as much (800 billion dollars). The war at sea cost 4,770 merchant vessels, with a gross tonnage of more than 21 million. This amounted to 27 percent of all the ships in existence at the start of the war.

In addition, war spending did not stop when the fighting ended. Care of the disabled, pensions, and other expenses continued. In the United States money spent for United Nations relief, occupation of foreign countries, and veterans’ benefits raised the total cost by another 30 billion dollars.

Losses in Normal Production

The total number of people who served in the armed forces during the war was estimated at about 92 million. Figures for some of the nations are the Soviet Union, 22 million; Germany, 17 million; the United States, 14 million; and Britain, 12 million.

U.S. Army Center of Military History

In 1943, the war year of peak employment in the United States, an additional 12,601,000 people worked in the basic war industries. In many other countries most of the workers had war jobs. The world lost years of peacetime production from all these people.

This expense to industry did not stop with the end of the war. Millions of people were not only taken from normal production, but they could not return to their usual work. Factories, railroads, and other business property had been destroyed. Millions of others had lost the money they needed or their business had been destroyed by the war.

Gains in Rebuilding, Science, Technology

There were, however, certain gains from the war. Much bomb damage had been done to slum areas of some cities. After the war these areas were rebuilt, giving people better places to live.

In many industries manufacturing methods had been improved. Automatic methods and machinery replaced costly handwork in countless operations. Machines were developed to squeeze and mold metal like putty. New alloys and plastics were developed.

Medicine and surgery made great advances. Penicillin might not have been produced for a generation in normal times. War insecticides such as DDT began a new age in controlling dangerous pests and disease carriers. The dangers posed by the use of pesticides would not be recognized for several years.

The development of jet and rocket propulsion offered prospects of air transportation at the speed of sound. The greatest advance of all was the releasing of atomic power, but peacetime benefits soon followed in the form of nuclear energy for power in industry. Nuclear power was adapted to new military uses in the construction of submarines and aircraft carriers.

The V-1 and V-2 guided missiles developed by the Germans during the war were an important step toward the modern space age. After the war V-2 equipment and German engineers were brought to the United States. The work of these German engineers along with that of American scientists resulted in the successful launching of American artificial Earth satellites.

The Hard Road to Peace

Throughout World War II there were important meetings among the heads of the Allied governments. At these conferences plans were made for winning the war and for the postwar world. The leaders hoped to avoid the mistakes made after World War I.

President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill met at sea off the North American coast in August 1941. They produced the Atlantic Charter, which restated Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points in more simple terms and promised to end Nazi tyranny.

U.S. Army Photo

In 1943 President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill conferred in Casablanca in January, in Washington, D.C., in August, and in Quebec in August. In 1943 in Moscow the foreign ministers of Britain, the Soviet Union, and China and Secretary of State Hull of the United States signed a pact to plan an international organization for peace.

The Tehran Conference and UNRRA

President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill met with Chiang Kai-shek of China at Cairo, Egypt, in November 1943. From Cairo Roosevelt and Churchill went to Tehran in Iran to confer with Premier Stalin. They promised him a second front in France.

Representatives of 44 Allied nations met in Washington, D.C., and Atlantic City in November 1943. They set up the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). The UNRRA fund for rehabilitating the postwar world was estimated at about 2 billion dollars. The United States was to provide 1.35 billion dollars of the total.

Planning Finance and World Peace

A group of monetary experts representing 44 states or governments held a conference at Bretton Woods, N.H., during July 1944. They agreed on a system for setting up an international lending agency. Countries in need of funds to finance international trade could borrow an amount equal to their contribution. This was called a “stabilization fund.” The plan also called for an International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to lend money for rehabilitation projects in member nations. The United States was expected to contribute the largest amount of money to both the stabilization fund and the World Bank.

In August 1944 representatives of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and China met at Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C. Preliminary plans were drawn up for assuring peace. These plans formed the basis for the organization of the United Nations the following year.

The Yalta Conference and the United Nations Charter

U.S. Army Photo

President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill met with Premier Stalin at Yalta in Crimea during February 4–11, 1945. They discussed plans for ending the war, occupying Germany, and dealing with the defeated or liberated countries of eastern Europe. They also laid the basis for provisions of the United Nations charter.

President Roosevelt died on April 12. Vice president Harry S. Truman succeeded to the presidency on the same day. He announced he would follow Roosevelt’s wartime and postwar policies.

On April 25, 1945, delegates from 50 countries assembled in San Francisco to endorse a charter based on the Dumbarton Oaks proposals. The charter took effect on October 24, 1945, officially creating the United Nations.

Potsdam Meeting; Postwar Disagreement

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

In July and August 1945 President Truman, Premier Stalin, and Prime Minister Churchill met in Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin. They discussed peace settlements and drew up plans for reconstructing Europe.

In the midst of these discussions an election in Britain put the Labour party in power. That party’s leader, Clement R. Attlee, succeeded Churchill as Britain’s prime minister and replaced him at the Potsdam meeting.

After Japan’s surrender the foreign secretaries of Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and France and American Secretary of State James F. Byrnes met in London in September 1945. After three weeks of disputes the meeting broke up without results.

During this time the Soviets demanded a share in the occupation of Japan. General MacArthur, however, was kept in sole command of Japan. The Soviet Union shared occupation of Korea with the United States.

Meanwhile, weaknesses in the prewar colonial empires began to surface—a trend that continued for many years. Revolts soon broke out in some of the regions released from Japanese control. In the Netherlands Indies Indonesian nationalists revolted and set up a republic in 1945. The Dutch failed to put down the revolt. By 1950 the Republic of Indonesia was formed. France had trouble reestablishing its authority in French Indochina against the resistance of Vietnamese nationalists. Britain was disturbed by rebellion in Burma, pressure for independence from India, and demands from Zionist Jews for entry into Palestine.

Postwar Relief; War Criminal Trials

By 1946 UNRRA had helped to return about 6 million people to their homes in western Europe. It had also distributed about 6 million tons of food. In 1947 UNRRA was discontinued. The problem of food relief was then handled by the individual nations.

National Archives, Washington, D.C.

In August 1945 the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and France wrote a charter for an Allied War Crimes Commission. The court established by the commission met at Nuremberg, Germany. It called before it 22 leading Nazis. In October 1946 the court sentenced most of the defendants. Ten of them were hanged. Seven were imprisoned, and three were acquitted. Others were sentenced later.

The British, Norwegians, and French also held separate war criminal trials. In Japan after V-J Day General MacArthur set up an Army commission to try war criminals. Hundreds were executed, and thousands more were put in prison.

British Power Declines; United States Problems

A significant postwar development was the decline of British power. Soon after the war Britain began to give up its empire. In 1947 it granted freedom to India, which split up into a Hindu state and a new Muslim nation named Pakistan. In the same year Britain turned over the Palestine problem to the United Nations. In 1948 the State of Israel was created.

For more than a year after the war the United States had problems that many foreign nations took for signs of weakness. Members of the armed forces demanded their release. By 1947 the Army was down from its war peak of more than 8 million soldiers to a peacetime strength of about 1 million. Congress passed the nation’s second peacetime draft law in 1948.

There were also many shortages of consumer goods. Widespread labor troubles resulted in damaging strikes. Dissatisfaction with conditions brought a sweeping Republican victory in the 1946 Congressional elections.

The Marshall Plan

One of the causes of World War II was the collapse of the European economy. To avoid a repeat of this situation and to create a strong economy that would enable Europeans to resist Communist aggression, the United States decided to aid European recovery. Under the Marshall Plan, named after United States Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the United States provided more than 13 billion dollars to rebuild western Europe. The plan was a great success and laid the foundations for the European Economic Union (Common Market). The Soviets refused to allow the eastern European nations under their control to participate.

The Peace Treaties

Delegates from 21 member countries of the United Nations met in Paris on July 29, 1946, to draft treaties with Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Finland. Representatives of the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and France signed the treaties in Paris on February 10, 1947. Each treaty provided that border fortifications were to be limited to those needed to keep internal security. Guarantees were given against racial discrimination and the rebirth of fascist governments. The Balkan treaties provided for free navigation of the Danube.

The treaty with Italy

Territorial: Loss of colonies in Africa (Eritrea, Somaliland, and Libya); final disposition to be decided by the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and France within a year, with the possibility of United Nations control. The port of Trieste to be internationalized under United Nations control. The city of Fiume, most of the peninsula of Venezia Giulia, the commune of Zara, and the islands of Lagosta and Pelagosa ceded to Yugoslavia; the Dodecanese Islands to Greece, the Tenda and Briga valleys, and other small frontier areas, to France. Italy recognized the independence of Albania and Ethiopia.

Reparations: 360 million dollars: 100 million to the Soviet Union, 125 million to Yugoslavia, 105 million to Greece, 25 million to Ethiopia, 5 million to Albania.

Armaments: Combined strength of army, navy, air force, and police, 300,000 personnel. Allowed 200 tanks, 67,500 tons of warships, 200 fighter planes, and 150 noncombat planes; long-range artillery and aircraft carriers prohibited. Warships in excess of the 67,500-ton limitation to be distributed among the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and France.

The treaty with Bulgaria

Territorial: Parts of Macedonia and Thrace returned to Yugoslavia and Greece.

The problem of Germany

United States Army Signal Corps/The Harry S. Truman Library/NARA

At Potsdam in 1945 Allied leaders set up a temporary administration for Germany. The country was divided into American, British, French, and Soviet occupation zones. The American, British, and French zones together made up the western two thirds of Germany, while the Soviet zone comprised the eastern third. Control of Berlin, in the Soviet zone, was divided between the Soviet Union and the Western powers. Later, in 1961, the city would be physically partitioned by a concrete and barbed-wire wall.

The victors were determined that Germany should not regain the industrial strength necessary for war. Wiping out all German industry, however, would have been disastrous. Western Europe depended on Germany for coal and heavy metal products. In return Germany normally bought huge quantities of foodstuffs from its neighbors.

The Allied powers also had to settle on a form of German government. The United States and Britain favored a federal type, with most matters entrusted to German states (Länder) and a federal government to deal with national matters such as currency. The Soviet Union preferred a strong central government with political parties directly represented so that Communists could dominate. France wanted a very loose federation, with international control of the Ruhr.

Representatives of the four powers convened in Moscow in 1947 to discuss treaties for Germany and Austria. Because of the postwar weakness of Britain and France, the conference was chiefly a contest between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union demanded 10 billion dollars in reparations from Germany in 20 years. The United States rejected this proposal on the grounds that the money could be made available only if the United States supplied an equivalent sum to support the Germans. If the reparations were to be paid without such support, it would greatly hamper Germany’s economic recovery. The conference ended with no agreement. Later meetings also failed. Then, in June 1948, the Soviet Union blockaded the roads and railways to Berlin in an attempt to force the United States, Britain, and France out of the city.

Air Force Historical Research Agency

The Western powers responded by supplying western Berlin with food, fuel, and medicine from outside by air. This airlift kept life going in western Berlin for 11 months, until the Soviet Union lifted the blockade in May 1949. In that same month the Western powers organized their occupation zones into a new nation called the Federal Republic of Germany, commonly known as West Germany. The Soviet Union then established its zone as the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. When the Soviet Union continued to block a German peace treaty the United States in 1952 ratified a “peace contract” with West Germany. Germany would not be reunited as a nation until 1990.

The problems of Austria and Trieste

The postwar split between the Soviet Union and the West was also illustrated in Austria. After the war Austria was divided into four areas of occupation—American, British, French, and Soviet—with Vienna under the control of all four powers. In 1955, after repeated disagreements about terms, a peace treaty was signed in Vienna. Soviet and Allied occupation forces were withdrawn.

Another postwar trouble spot in Europe was Trieste. In 1945 the city and surrounding territory were divided into two zones—Zone A (including Trieste) was occupied by British and United States forces, Zone B by the Yugoslavs. The Italian peace treaty of 1947 established the Free Territory of Trieste under the jurisdiction of the United Nations. Conflicts between Yugoslavia and Italy over their claims to the territory continued, however. In an agreement signed by the two countries in 1954, Trieste and most of Zone A were given to Italy while Yugoslavia received Zone B and some added territory.

Harry S. Truman Library & Museum

Meanwhile the increased threat of Communism in Europe led to the formation of new pacts among the free nations. In 1949 ten nations of western Europe joined with the United States and Canada in establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Three years later the European Defense Community was founded. This group received NATO support. (See alsoCold War.)

Postwar problems in Asia

In the East Asia Communist military aggression created a new balance of power before the World War II peace treaty with Japan could be signed. On the Asia mainland Chinese Communist forces routed the armies of Nationalist China (1946–49). Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist leader, proclaimed the People’s Republic of China and allied it with the Soviet Union. This made China the strongest military power in the Far East. The defeated Nationalist forces, headed by Chiang Kai-shek, fled to the island of Taiwan.

The successful Communist revolution in China set the pattern for Communist revolts in other Asian countries. In what would become Malaysia and in the Philippines rebels waged campaigns of terrorism that lasted for a number of years. In Indochina Communist forces attacked French-supported Vietnam. They forced the French to partition Vietnam.

After World War II Korea was occupied in the north by the Soviet Union and in the south by the United States. When the Republic of Korea was established in the south, most of the United States forces withdrew. In 1950 Communist forces from North Korea and China invaded the new republic. Thus the increasing tensions in eastern Asia had finally exploded into warfare.

Peace treaty with Japan

Japan struggled to rebuild itself after its crushing defeat. During this time all efforts by the Allies to frame a peace treaty were blocked by the Soviet Union’s disagreements with the United States. Finally, in 1951, the United States sponsored a treaty that was endorsed by Japan and 48 other nations. The Soviet Union refused to sign. The Chinese signatory—the Nationalist government—signed in 1952. The chief provisions of the peace treaty were as follows:

Territorial: The independence of Korea was to be recognized; all claims to Taiwan, the Pescadores, the southern part of Sakhalin, and the Pacific islands that were formerly under Japanese mandate were to be surrendered.

Reparations: Because of limited economic capacity Japan was made to pay victimized nations only in goods manufactured in Japan from raw materials supplied by those nations.

Armaments: No limitations. Japan, however, agreed to abide by the antiaggression provisions contained in the charter of the United Nations. In addition, Article Nine of the new Japanese constitution prohibited all warfare except in defense. Negotiations between Japan and the Soviet Union continued until 1956, when a peace treaty was finally signed.

Additional Reading

Calvocoressi, Peter, and others. Total War: The Causes and Courses of the Second World War, rev. 2nd ed. (Penguin, 1995).Daws, Gavan. Prisoners of the Japanese (Morrow, 1994).Hart, B.H. Liddell. History of the Second World War (Putnam, 1970).Hughes, Terry, and Costello, John. The Battle of the Atlantic (Dial Press/J. Wade, 1977).Isserman, Maurice. World War II, updated ed. (Facts On File, 2003).Landau, Ronnie S. The Nazi Holocaust (Ivan R. Dee, 1994).Rhodes, Richard. Dark Sun: The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Simon & Schuster, 1995).Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (Simon & Schuster, 1990; orig. pub. 1960).Terkel, Studs. The Good War: An Oral History of World War II (Phoenix, 2001; orig. pub. 1984).Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994).Willmott, H.P. The Second World War in the Far East (Cassell, 2002).

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